The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back (3 page)

Before I could ask him why he was upset, I noticed Mercedes Bentley hovering near our table having a conversation with one of her minions. She was our resident token evil girl whose personal credo is "Random Acts of Meanness." I had always flown under her radar until last year when Ella came to Malibu Prep. I was guessing that because she couldn't afford to be vicious to Ella, whom everybody loved, I was fair game. Hurt me to hurt Ella or something.

She stepped closer to our table to be sure I heard what she said next. "The likelihood of that happening is about the same as Mattie getting a ride in Jake Kingston's car." Several of her little friends laughed in response.

I didn't know if that was supposed to be a euphemism, or if she was being literal. I decided she wasn't smart enough to talk with subtext.

Ever since Jake turned sixteen and got his two-seater car (I didn't know what brand it was. It was one of those red kinds), it was every girl's ambition to be the person in that second seat. The thing was, Jake hardly ever gave anyone a ride. The few girls who had been carted around by him had major bragging rights. You'd think Ella would be riding shotgun every single day. I would. But I didn't think she'd ever been in his car. I didn't know if he was just weird about it and didn't offer, or if Ella refused. Ella and I did NOT talk about Jake, for obvious reasons. Well, obvious to me, anyway.

The point was that girls had been devious and underhanded in their attempts. One girl faked an injury; another punctured her own tire. Riding with him was a Malibu Prep status symbol.

So it wasn't like Jake specifically excluded me from his precious ride. Still, my stomach tightened and my brain turned to mush every time Mercedes made one of her little digs at me.

I, uncharacteristically, found myself floundering whenever she did this. Later on I would think of a thousand perfect retorts, but never any when it mattered.

The best I could do was, "There's a better 'likelihood' of me getting a ride from Jake than you."

Mercedes whipped her long, blonde extensions behind one shoulder with her perfectly manicured hand. "You think so? Really?"

She shouldn't care. She was Scott's girlfriend. Although, if I were Scott's girlfriend I'd upgrade to Jake faster than you could say, "See ya!" I think she was just mad because I dared to talk back.

"Well," she said in a low voice, "I'll have to run that one past Jake and see what he thinks."

I didn't know how she had figured out that I liked Jake. But a lot of her catty remarks centered around him and how he didn't like me. She gave me a fake, smug smile and walked away with her little ducklings in tow.

Round 457 to Mercedes. She had the ability to go to Jake and make me look like some sort of crazy nutjob whose one ambition in life was to get a ride in his car. I watched uneasily as she sidled up to Scott, putting her arms around him and whispering something in his ear. He laughed, and then turned to look at me.

I had to look down at the table. I couldn't be a witness to the expression on Jake's face when she made me seem insane.

"I can't stand that girl," I muttered.

"Someone who was named unironically after two cars is not worth listening to. You can't take anything she says seriously."

I knew Trent was right. My brain knew it. I knew Mercedes Bentley was a vacuous, spray-tanned, silicon-injected, nose-altered waste of space. I logically also knew that Jake didn't like me and never would.

So why did it hurt so much when someone as stupid as Mercedes pointed it out?

Chapter 4

I watched Trent and Ella walk down the front steps toward his car. She said something to him, and he turned to her and smiled. He actually
smiled
. He hardly ever smiled. Then he pulled out one of his earbuds and offered it to her. He'd never shared his music with me. She didn't even have to try and this happened.

I stomped down the hallway and took the northwest stairs. Ms. Rathbone had said detention would be in Room 203. It was the third door on the right on the second floor.

"Hello, Mattie." My art teacher, Mrs. Putnam, sat at the desk, giving me a look that was a cross between disappointment and a smile. The word I thought of when I saw her was "soft" --like she was blurred around the edges. I noticed that she had pulled her light brown hair into a messy bun held together with a pencil and had several multi-colored streaks of chalk on her face, clothes and fingertips. She was one of the few teachers I actually liked, and it was embarrassing to have her find out that I misbehaved outside of her classroom.

A laptop was propped open next to the door. It asked for my student ID and password. I entered the number and used my current go-to password that consisted of my birthday and my favorite anime artist,
tezuka827
. I hit the enter key.

The screen flashed, "THANK YOU MATILDA LOWE. DETENTION CHECK-IN TIME 2:37 P.M."

I told you it was an expensive school. (That, and Ms. Rathbone was obsessed with computerized record keeping.)

Room 203 was bright and airy. The windows on the outer wall started halfway up, curved at the corner where the ceiling began, and made up part of the roof. This wing had the art studios because of the excellent light. Beyond the classroom I could see the landscaping crew tending to the bright green grounds (not fields, thank you, but grounds).

Realizing that Mrs. Putnam was giving me a strange expression while I stared out the window, I quickly picked a desk in the middle of the room, sat down and dropped my bookbag on the floor next to me. I leaned over and pulled out my sketchpad and a pencil from my bag. I knew I should probably do my homework, but if I was going to sit in silence for the next hour, I was at least going to enjoy myself.

I had just started sketching a rough outline for my Ms. Rathbone-inspired warrior when suddenly every ion in the room became electrically charged.

Jake.

I was so aware of him that it was actually lame. I knew when he walked in a room even if I didn't see him. I felt it. The air was different when he was breathing it.

I heard the keys clicking on the laptop and watched as he entered his information into the computer. Jake had detention? Here? With me?

Then I wondered why Jake would have detention. Jake was not the kind of person who ended up here. He didn't have a problem with authority figures like I did. What had he done?

He looked up and I looked down at my sketchpad. I didn't know if Mercedes had already talked to him, and I didn't want to see pity or disgust or confusion or any of the expressions I imagined him having.

"Hi, Mrs. Putnam," he said in that deep, rumbly, smooth voice. It had the tendency to melt my insides into a pile of goo.

"Hello, Jake," she responded with an ever-so-slight flirtatious lilt at the edge of her voice. No woman was immune to the powers of Jake Kingston's charm.

I kept my eyes trained on my sketchpad, still not wanting to look up. It wasn't an easy battle because I loved looking at him.

So it shocked me when, out of the twenty-nine other seats in the classroom he could have picked, he sat down right in front of me. I would know the back of his head anywhere. Given our last names, Kingston and Lowe, I had been seated behind him in every class we'd shared for most of our lives.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started typing. Electronic devices weren't allowed in detention, but rules didn't typically apply to Jake. I leaned to one side to see if Mrs. Putnam would say anything. But she looked distracted and a little anxious. She kept checking the clock. I again noticed the colored chalk on her fingers and blouse. She had the look of an artist who had been working on a piece and wanted to get back to it. Trust me, I knew this look very, very well.

I wasn't the only one who noticed her fidgeting. "Mrs. Putnam, if you need to go, I think Mattie and I are responsible enough to watch ourselves."

He knew my name
! Well, obviously, he knew my name. He was dating my stepsister. But I didn't think I'd ever heard him say it out loud before. My heartbeat sped up.

After I got over that initial shock of hearing my name pass across Jake's lips, I realized the brilliance of his plan. If Mrs. Putnam left, I'd be alone with Jake. For an entire hour.

"The art studio is right down the hall," I pointed out helpfully. "You could come back and check on us and we would just log out when our hour is up. We promise to be quiet and stay put." I was trustworthy. She knew me well. And Jake was the center of Malibu Prep's universe. It wasn't like we were hardened criminals or something.

"I shouldn't…" She had an expressive face, and I could see her desire to go fighting with her duty to stay. She looked at the clock again.

"We'll be fine," Jake reassured her.

Several seconds passed before she stood up. "I will be in my studio if you need anything and I will come back to check on you."

I smirked. No she wouldn't. If she was anything at all like my dad, she'd get so caught up in whatever she was doing that a couple of hours would pass before she'd remember us.

Her high heels made a
clickety-clack
sound as they walked across the laminate floor. She paused at the door, giving us a stern look. "Right down the hall," she reminded us one last time and then she left.

I was alone with Jake.

And I had no idea what to do with him.

I had imagined this moment so often and now that I was here my throat closed in on itself. I couldn't think of a single thing to say.

That was a lie. I could think of a lot of things to say, but I was pretty sure if I told Jake I wanted to bear his firstborn child, he might freak out a little.

Since he was dating my stepsister, you'd think we would've had some kind of interaction in the past, but we hadn't. He never spent time at my house. Especially after the Bathroom Incident.

So, the story was that I was taking a shower and singing Justin Bieber tunes. When I got out I put on this flimsy, thigh-high, blue silk kimono my mother got for me. (She didn't know that I wore it, and I would never admit to her that I did.) Anyway, it was much tighter than it used to be because, in the words of my Aunt Sarah, I "exploded." She said it happened to the Lowe women just before their eighteenth birthdays. Grandma called it blossoming, but Aunt Sarah disagreed. She said there was nothing slow or gradual about it.

Aunt Sarah was right. One day I was me, the next my bra didn't fit. I hated it. I knew probably most girls would be thrilled, but it was like I wasn't myself. I was used to the way I looked and suddenly I looked like…well, not me.

Anyway, I came out of the bathroom, toweling my wet hair, and Jake was standing there. We were like two deer caught in the headlights, staring at each other. I could have darted back into the bathroom. He could have turned around and walked away. We didn't. Instead we stood and stared for what felt like an actual eternity. He cleared his throat and said three words to me. "Nice, uh, singing." Then he finally left, shaking his head and letting out a deep breath. It was then that I realized I had been holding my breath too.

He never came to the house again.

As if he could sense my crazy, Jake turned around slowly and laid his left forearm across my desk. My hand was flat on the desk right next to his arm and I could feel the warmth and energy that he seemed to give off. I scolded my twitchy hand to stay put and to not reach out and touch him.

"So, Aprils sent you to detention?"

All the saliva in my mouth dried up, but I managed a, "Yeah."

He gave me one of those high wattage grins and said, "You shouldn't have attacked Twain." He sounded like he was teasing me.

"I know." I wanted to fan myself, but refrained. I could feel the flush creeping into my cheeks, and I willed them to stay their normal color.

The words
we're having a conversation! We're having a conversation!
ran on an endless loop in my brain. Only, the reality was that Jake was trying to have a conversation with me and I was ruining it. Ruining it!

I needed to fix this, and fast before he thought I was a total idiot. "Why are you here?" My voice sounded only a little shaky. I hoped he didn't notice.

"You mean here on the planet or in detention?" Another smile, more teasing. I liked the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners.

I smiled back. "I meant detention."

"I was leaning against the wall and my backpack caught on the fire alarm and set it off." Have I mentioned how much I love his dark brown eyes? It wasn't just that they were beautiful (which they so were) but that with him looking at me, it was like I was the most important person in the entire world. Like there was nowhere else he'd rather be than talking to me.

"That was you?"

"Yeah."

"Ms. Rathbone must have been in a mood to send you to detention for an accident." I had probably aggravated her more than I realized. I should feel bad, but if it led to this, I couldn't feel too sorry.

He shrugged. "Yeah, they ended up calling my dad." He said the words tightly, and it was obvious things had not gone well.

Subject change! I wanted more smiles.

"On the bright side, you got me out of social studies. So on behalf of myself and my class, I thank you."

He laughed and my loop changed from
we're having a conversation!
to
oh my Buddha, I just made Jake Kingston laugh!
Then I imagined that it could be like this every day if we were both in the student government class. We'd work on projects and spend lots and lots of time together. He would see that we were perfect for each other and we'd ride off into the sunset.

And what about Ella?
my guilty subconscious asked me. I told it to shut up.

"So, what you're saying is that you sort of owe me."

Huh? "Owe you?" I wondered if he'd let me pay him back in kisses.

"I have some stuff I need to do. Would you mind covering for me?"